There’s nothing worse than losing all the files that you have saved on your iPhone or iPad. There are many things that can cause all your data to disappear in one second and all your family pictures and videos will be gone without any way of getting them back. If you don’t want this to ever happen to you, then you need to make it your top priority to perform a full backup. If you are a big Apple fan and you multiple Apple-made devices, then you should be pleased to know that you can backup your iPhone or iPad directly in macOS Catalina.
macOS Catalina is the latest and biggest update that Apple has released for Macs in 2019 and it brought lots of new features with it. One of the biggest changes that the operating system update has made was to ditch iTunes. While this might not sound like a problem, it does make it more difficult to detect iPhones and iPads, and as a result, most people have no idea how to perform a full backup anymore. Here is where we come in. Today we are going to present a detailed guide that will teach all Apple fans everything they need to do know about backing up their iPhones or iPads on macOS Catalina.
How to Backup Data via macOS Catalina
We know that not everyone is tech-savvy and this is why we are going to present our backup guide for iPhone and iPad in a step-by-step fashion. This way, everyone can follow the guide and make sure that that they don’t skip any steps. Without any further ado, let’s get into it.
- Connect the iOS-powered device (iPhone or iPad) to the Mac via a lighting cable;
- Open the “Finder” app on the Mac;
- Access the “Locations” panel that can be found in the left column and then click on the iOS-powered device;
- The “Finder” app will now display all types of information about the iOS-powered device in different tabs. Click on the “General” button;
- The next step is to search for the section that is called “Backups”;
- Pick the type of backup that you are interested in performing;
Side Note: The two options that you will receive are “Back up the most important data on your iPhone to iCloud” and “Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac”. Our advice is to go with the second option because it makes sure that every piece of information that you have stored on your iOS-powered device will be stored safely.
Another important thing that we want to mention is that when you are performing the full backup, you can also choose to encrypt all the data. It’s highly advised to do this because you don’t want anyone who doesn’t have permission to access your private information. This can be done by checking the box that is located next to the “Encrypt local backup” option.
- After picking the backup that you desire, you need to click on the “Back Up Now” option.
How to Restore Data via macOS Catalina
If something bad happened and all the data saved on your iOS-powered device has been lost, then you need to restore it. Fortunately, the process is not too complicated and if you follow the next steps, you will be able to do it in less than ten minutes.
- Follow the first four steps presented in the guide above;
- Access the section called “Backups”;
- Click on the “Restore Backup” option;
- A pop-up window will appear and you will need to pick the data that you want to be restored on your iOS-powered;
- After selecting the data that you want to be restored, enter your personal password in the “Password” section;
- All that is left to do now is to click on the “Restore” button and wait for the restoration process to be complete.
How to Manage Data via macOS Catalina
Now that we have shown you how to perform a full backup on a Mac and how to restore the data, we want to end our guide by presenting you with how to manage data in macOS Catalina. In order to manage the backups of your iOS-device on a Mac, you will need to connect the device to the Mac via a lighting cable and then click on the “Manage Backup” option. After doing this, a new pop-up window that contains a list of all the Device Backups will appear.
The list contains two different sections. The right-hand side section will show the date and time at which the device has been backed up and the left-hand side will show the name of the device that was backed up. Simply select the session that you are interested in and then you can copy/paste/edit the data as you wish.
Final Words
As we have seen in the step-by-step guides featured above, performing a full backup for your iPhone or iPad on macOS Catalina is not too complicated. Learning how to perform a full backup is an essential step towards becoming an iOS or macOS power user because after you do this, you will never have to worry about lost pictures, videos, work files and so on. To make things even better, you also get the option to store all the backups on Apple’s iCloud so that you don’t have to use any of your precious internal storage space.